What Is Today's Modern Canon

Composers of texts present a biased attitude to the events, personalities or situations represented. In various texts such as Shakespeare’s “Julius Caesar” and Leunig’s cartoon “Yet another picture with the wrong caption”, the composers bias is evident even though conflicting perspectives towards the personality are presented.

The term “literary canon” refers to “a body of books, narratives and other texts considered to be the most important and influential of a particular time period or place.” What books fall into the canon has, in the past, been determined by older, rich, religious, white men; this heavily restricted what books were deemed a socially acceptable influence. Books from authors like Shakespeare and Jane Austen were widely accepted, while more modern readings were not. Today, there is a lot of debate about what sorts of books are appropriate for the literary canon. Generally books in the Young Adult Category are not seen as adequate for the canon, but “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” by Stephen Chbosky belongs in the literary canon, despite its

5. a.) Revisionism that stresses the faults of great figures can lead to an overwhelming negativity toward some great heroes who ultimately bring lessons of morality to the table. It perpetuates the idea that human beings, even the best of us, are always crawling with gaping character flaws. But, it also helps us humanize these great figures whose reputations often run away with them. It helps us to remember that political success does not equal morality. b.) This trend in historical writing alludes to a growing sense of both negativity and revolution in our society. As we begin to reject common figures of greatness and replace them with our own versions, modern-day youth culture is beginning to establish their own identity separate from current systems. This straying from the norm of decided importance implies a lack of trust or satisfaction with current

Another reason there is no wholly original work is because of the many archetypes that many different books have in common.

Bruce offers a solid explanation of the formation of the canon chronologically starting with the Hebrew scriptures (p. 21) until the 4th century where church councils started to present the first spoken finished canon (p. 97). Bruce shows the importance of the Old Testament scriptures, but writes most about the New Testament. He not only shows how the New Testament came to be a canon but offers a deep analysis of non-canonical scripture called the Apocrypha (pp. 48, 90-93).

Those are a great example saying that even though the truth isn’t always what it seems to one person, it is the point of view of one specific person. This gives an enormous insight on how society works today. There are so many points of view and ways to view a story that no human being ever really knows the whole and real truth to any situation except Mother Earth. Every other side to a story is only a mere opinion for as far as anyone else may know. How are we to know anything that is entirely true?

d. Whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value.

The literary canon is those works considered by scholars, critics, and teachers to be the most important to read and study, which collectively constitute the “masterpieces” of literature. (Meyer 2175) In the past there has been much debate on whether non-fiction should be considered for inclusion in the canon, but non-fiction writers being considered part of the canon is not unheard of, and is already a reality – George Orwell, Henry David Thoreau, Ernest Hemingway- all had a significant body of non-fictional work and are well respected, well established members. Sonja Livingston’s work is part of a genre called creative non-fiction. As stated in his article for The Writer, Lee Gutkind states, “Creative nonfiction-also called "new

“Writers consistently use novels as a lens through which they scrutinise society.” To what extent do you agree with this view?

interpretations they make about characters or events in a story. This is many times the beauty in

Religio-historical objects are things of crafted pieces of writing that reveal the realities of religious subjects through the perspective visions of their author (C.J Bleeker). Compared to an artist who has a muse, writers also have a “muse” something that influences their writing. Whether it is a personal experience, religious belief, or common morals writers derive the context within their writing from many different aspects of life. One thing most authors derive their ideas from is their religion or just any religion that interest them. Authors like Nathaniel Hawthorne and Flannery O’Connor, writings often include many allegories and symbols to religious faiths.

Each of these aspects would influence his unsentimental outlook of the social, political, and governance issues that he would later inform people of in his most famous works (28). This viewpoint of his can clearly be seen in all his works.

Discuss whether or not the writer was a neutral party. If not, explain the opinions or interests that might have influenced what was written

Perhaps the greatest achievement to come from early church history is the establishment of a universal New Testament Canon. While we may not put much thought into it today, which books should be included or excluded from the New Testament was once the center of much controversy. It took the church many years to settle upon the current collection of books as being the proper Canon, making it more of a process than an event. Ironically enough, the need for a universal Canon was only realized after many disputes over the version suggest by the Christian heretic Marcion. Marcion’s collection of books were revised by Athanasius and later endorsed by the church through councils. Once the New Testament Canon was established, all other suggested books became part of a collection known as the Apocrypha and their use dismissed by the church.

Fiction is, and has always been a mirror for the real life. Therefore, literature, as the artistic tool used to deliver works of fiction, has been parallel to history from past to present. As the ideas evolved, the cultures evolved, and as the cultures evolved, literature evolved. However, there have been times when this evolution had help. In its core, this is what happened in the Renaissance era. As people rediscovered the ideas and cultures of the past civilisations, Middle Ages, in which the evolution of thinking was going backwards, came to an end with a leap in thinking style. People realised they have been stuck at one point because of twisted religion and blind violence between people, and learned to look through individual glasses. These new individual glasses gave huge importance to human, rather than vast kingdoms and large groups, and focused on the core. They moved on from their one-sided viewpoint in life, which was giving the ultimate importance to the afterlife, and gave themselves to discovering